


don't wanna perish like a fading horse

by tornlinson



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, He's an asshole, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Old Tony Stark, Post Avengers, Sad with a Happy Ending, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, and alone, because fuck the russos for killing both tony and loki, even though she just went against all laws, he's old, hel is a good daughter who just wants her dad to be happy, magneto's also there, major character death but it's temporary, retired tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 21:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18978961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornlinson/pseuds/tornlinson
Summary: Tony catches the second Loki’s gaze softens, catches the second he realizes how old Tony’s become, how different Tony looks now. And Tony knows that, too. His brown hair had faded into a light grey over the years, laugh lines that enhanced even further with age along with newly formed wrinkles, and his tanned skin that had stretched so smoothly across his face was now on the verge of sagging. He no more stood with the poise of a sarcastic genius, his lips no more held the permanent smirk that had people falling all over him, and his eyes were no more bright with joy.“Anthony,” Loki says, after what felt like ages of them just looking at each other. “You-““Aged? Yeah. Like fine wine.”





	don't wanna perish like a fading horse

 

Tony barely gets out of his bed anymore. At first, it was just getting out of the house – not wanting the public to catch sight of how fifteen years of fighting as Iron Man crept up to him and took a toll on his body. He doesn’t want anyone to see how, where once there was a steady flow of words from his mouth, he has to take a breath each time he speaks too fast. He has to take a breath each time he walks too fast, each time he lifts something heavy. He’d try on his suit in the workshop, feeling FRIDAY’s sympathetic gaze as he tries to move in his suit like he used to. Tries to twist, turn, kick and punch like he used to. Tony was thirty-eight when he told the world he was Iron Man, fifty-three when he officially retired – but almost everyday he’d find himself in his workshop relishing in the comfort as the cool metal of the suit closed around him.

Now, he couldn’t  bear going down to his workshop. Seeing all his inventions, his works in progress, hearing the constant buzz of machines at work was too much to handle. It was painful, to say the least. A constant reminder of who he used to be. Tony Stark – _genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist_ , was now Tony Stark – _old man_. It was ridiculous, really, the way he decided to isolate himself from everyone – Pepper and Rhodey included. They texted sometimes, left voicemails when Tony didn’t answer, but they never visited him. Pepper was married, and thanks to Rhodey’s army training, he still had a few more years as Iron Patriot. Also, he didn’t have Tony’s alcohol habits. It leaves him with a few possibilities: either they respected Tony’s privacy, understood his need to be left alone until he’s a decaying corpse or they were just busy. Tony can’t blame them. He gave Pepper an entire multibillion company to run, gave Rhodey the suit that made him Iron Patriot. They have responsibilities that are far from coddling Tony Stark.

The Avengers are still based in New York. Though, not the same as they used to be except for Cap – who’s still thriving from the super soldier serum. Barton and Romanoff retired a few years after Tony did, both of them wiped off the face of the Earth. Tony figured Barton finally settled down with his family, and well, Romanoff’s whereabouts were always a mystery. He sees Peter on the news sometimes, heart twisting in fond memory of the young, chattery kid who was now a young man, fighting alongside the Captain and Maximoff. There are others too, but Tony could care less.  

So he stays in bed. FRIDAY and Dum-E help. FRIDAY orders food, Dum-E gets it from the delivery guy and brings it to Tony. FRIDAY often pulls up the video feed when Dum-E collects the food, and Tony has a good laugh over the delivery guy’s face. She tries to do things that cheers Tony up. Everything’s convenient. No paparazzi on his property either, because Tony doesn’t stay in any of his properties that’s known to the public. He’s settled upstate, far from prying eyes but still close enough to the city.

It’s silent, Tony realizes suddenly. Suspiciously silent. With an effort that he wouldn’t admit to, Tony slowly sat up on his bed.

“FRIDAY?”

No response. Okay, that’s fine. No reason to panic. None. Except for the fact that there _was. FRIDAY never goes silent._ He prays to god that it’s not Hydra or some godforsaken enemy who decided to crash into his humble abode and kill him while he’s donning an embarrassing pair of blue pyjamas. Muttering profanities under his breath, he stands up – a wave of his joints cracking as he did so – and makes his way out of his bedroom.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary at first, but Tony’s too experiences at being fooled by illusions and innocent facades that he grabs hold of a vase anyways. Just in case. The house he lives in is fairly small – small open kitchen that looks out to a rather spacious living room. Two bedrooms – one upstairs, and one below. The basement leads down to his workshop, the exact replica of the one from his Malibu house. He made sure he had enough basement space to ensure that part of his life never left him.

What caught his eye, as his eyes scanned the minimal space in his house, was a figure. A _fucking familiar_ one at that, too. Without taking time to spare, hands moving solely from raw anger that started building up inside him, Tony raises the vase and _hurls_ it at the figure at such a speed that, if said figure hadn’t turned ever so slightly from Tony’s movement from the corner of his eye, and if said figure’s reflexes weren’t faster than any human that easily allowed him to duck right before the vase crashes against the wall, it would’ve definitely hit him square in the face.

Loki stands upright again, face morphing into a cold glare and he’s about to speak, has even parted his lips to spew words of poison when he finally registers Tony. _Tony Stark – old man._ Tony catches the second Loki’s gaze softens, catches the second he realizes how old Tony’s become, how _different_ Tony looks now. And Tony knows that, too. His brown hair had faded into a light grey over the years, laugh lines that enhanced even further with age along with newly formed wrinkles, and his tanned skin that had stretched so smoothly across his face was now on the verge of sagging. He no more stood with the poise of a sarcastic genius, his lips no more held the permanent smirk that had people falling all over him, and his eyes were no more bright with joy.

“Anthony,” Loki says, after what felt like ages of them just looking at each other. “You-“

“Aged? Yeah. Like fine wine,” Tony smiles, spreading his hands. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and Loki can see that too. He can see how Tony tries to act the same, sees how there’s a little bit of sadness swimming in his eyes when he realizes that he can’t. The smile drops from Tony’s face as immediately as it came. Loki can’t bring himself to step closer to Tony. It would mean almost nothing – just a single step, but there’s always a bigger meaning when it comes to the two of them. It’s an attempt to close a gap, a gap that started out as a crack and morphed into a gigantic rift. It only grew with every second that Loki was gone.

There’s a long silence. Neither of them speak. Tony’s staring at Loki expectantly, face absent from any emotion and _Hel, Loki would prefer that blank smile from earlier over this any day,_ so he’s finally forced to start talking.

“I came here to-“

“Apologize?” Tony’s voice has a sharp edge to it now, almost threatening. “Okay, forgiven. Now get the fuck out of my house.”

“Let me finish-“

“Get the _fuck_ out of my house!”

Silence. Loki waits till he’s sure that Tony won’t interrupt him _again_.

“Anthony. You are overreacting.”

“ _Oh._ Excuse me, I only thought you were _dead_ for the past ten years!” Tony almost laughs at the way Loki flinches, as if  _that_ was something that hurt. 

'

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

 

They were in battle, the Avengers against some dude who thought he could rule the world just because he could manipulate metal. Loki had warned Tony to keep his distance from the guy, and instead, fight the deformed robot army of said villain. So obviously, Tony wasn’t thinking when he stopped fighting the metallic being he was occupied with, and charged straight at the guy whose complete attention was on Loki. His Loki. Dangerous, sharp edged pieces of metal rained down on Loki at such incredible speed, and yet Loki managed to avoid each and every one of them with ease. His face was twisted into a scowl as he deflected some of the metal by his own movements, and deflected the others with bursts of his own magic. Tony could see Loki’s chest heaving as he struggled to keep on par with the razor sharp objects of metal being thrown at him. Magneto, or whatever he called himself, had figured out that Loki was too powerful and was doing his best to immobilize him. Tony was having none of that.

“Hey, Horseshoe! He’s taken!” He yelled out from his suit speakers, coming to a stop a few feet away from him and used his right gauntlet to fire a repulsor blast at Magneto. Several sheets of metal are immediately flown in front of Magneto, deflecting the blast, and they’re soon lowered to reveal Magneto with a dark glint in his eye.

_Oh no._

Tony registers it a little too late. He feels his suit tightening around him, achingly slow, but enough to be painful.

“ _Boss!“_ FRIDAY’s last word sounds almost helpless as Tony starts freefalling from the sky. His HUD is glitching – flashing red and going haywire - and none of his repulsors are working. He can hear Loki’s yell, can see the ground closing up on him right before he’s enveloped in a green shimmer. There’s no impact, but they next thing Tony knows is he’s on the ground. The suit stopped tightening around him, and only when Tony looks up to see Magneto’s face through the green shimmer does he realize that Loki’s put a protection spell on him. His eyes land on Loki who had just teleported himself in front of Tony.

“ _What were you thinking, Anthony?_ ” Loki hisses sharply, the worry and fear in his eyes betraying the words which were supposed to come out angry. That was all the distraction Magneto needed, apparently, because as soon as Tony realized they were still in the middle of the fight, there’s a quick swoosh followed by a sharp intake of breath. Tony registers three things at once.

Magneto’s smug face.

Loki, who looks frozen mid-speech.

The pole that’s completely  _impaled_  Loki, one end of it disintegrating where it met the protective barrier around Tony.

It’s huge, diameter at least 6 inches, and it pierces Loki right through his sternum.

Everything’s fuzzy after that. He remembers Thor screaming as he charged towards Magneto, Mjolnir in hand being the one metal that Magneto couldn’t control. Remembers Hulk joining Thor, punching his way through Magneto’s robots and turning them into a hundred pieces of metal.  Remembers seeing Loki fall to his side, face devoid of expression and colour as a stream of blood spills out of his mouth. The protective barrier around him is flickering, the only indication that Loki’s alive, but then green shimmer turns transparent until it completely disappears. He remembers screaming, crying, sobbing over Loki’s corpse until Magneto is defeated. He had somehow managed to remove the suit manually before draping over Loki and mumbling apologies in a mixture of heavy sobbing and breathing. _I’m so sorry, I didn’t listen. Fuck,  I just wanted to protect you. Don’t leave me, please. Please, Loki. I love you. Don’t leave me, babe. I love you. I’m so sorry, oh my god, I’m so fucking sorry._

Thor takes Loki’s body, pale, limp and draped unnaturally over Thor’s arms, and takes him back to Asgard for his funeral. Tony steps down as Iron Man. He couldn’t bear continuing to save lives when he lost the one life that mattered most, just because of pure, selfish recklessness.

 

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

 

That was the last time Tony saw Loki. Well, until now. He’s handling it pretty well, considering all that took place. The past 10 years of his life was spent blaming himself for what happened, for putting his own self in harms way, putting _Loki_ in harms way. Loki _died_ saving him, died _because_ of him.

And now, Loki’s _here_ , has the _audacity_ to say that he’s overreacting.

“Anthony,” Loki says, _again,_ and Tony’s gut twists. He’s spent years replaying the scene, replaying Loki’s death, replaying the ‘Anthony’ that fell from Loki’s lips right before he was impaled.

“You shouldn’t have come back, Loki.” Tony shakes his head, moving slightly to the right so he can lean against the doorframe of his bedroom for support. Sometimes, his body just doesn’t agree with him.

“I came here for _you._ I was almost sent to Valhala, given the circumstances of my… death. But Hel, she insisted to the Norns that her father join her, and I did. I was in _Helheim,_ with my _daughter_ , and I was still suffering because _you_ weren’t there. She sent me back. She – I was able to heal on Asgard.”

“All that took you ten years? I don’t believe that.” Tony tries to put more malice into his words, more of his anger, show him _how much he’s been hurt,_ but his words sound desperate and pleading, hidden under a question of _why didn’t you come back sooner?_

“I was scared.” Loki says, to which Tony scoffs. “I thought you might have moved on, leading a happier life without me, with someone else. I didn’t know..” Loki trails off, looking around the small house before finally scanning his eyes over Tony’s body again.

“Yeah. Mortality. Happens to the best of us.”

“You know very well that was not what I intended, Anthony. I need you to –“

“And I needed _you_!” Tony shouts, cutting him off. Loki can see raw pain in his eyes, built up emotions that are threating to spill. “As in past tense.” Softer now. “It’s too late, Loki. You lost your right to _need_ me ever since you came back to life, healed on Asgard, and decided to _stay_ on Asgard.”

“And I needed you to stay away from Magneto.” Loki says, so soft that Tony would’ve missed it if his entire focus wasn’t on Loki. _His_ Loki – or, well. Used to be his, anyway. But Tony hears, and the words twist in his heart.

“That’s not fair.” Tony immediately backtracks. “You were in danger. You were – You could’ve _died.”_

Loki raises an eyebrow.  

Tony, realizing the words that just came out his mouth, visibly slumps his shoulders and accepts the defeat. Eyes fixed on Loki, whose brow is raised so high up that its almost comical, Tony tries to fight the small smile playing at his lips. Loki notices, the way that Tony’s making weird movements with his lips being a dead giveaway. In a sudden movement of his legs, that he didn’t even realize until he was halfway there, he’s walked over to where Tony stands. The several inches of space between them is tensed, but slowly dying. Tony’s eyes are devoid of anger now, but after that, all Loki sees is sadness and hopelessness.

“I meant what I said.” Tony says, looking somewhere in the space between them and trying so hard to look at Loki’s who’s so _close_ to him. “Earlier, I mean. About it being too late.” His voice is so soft, so scared of his own fragility, and it hurts to think that he’ll only have a few more years with Loki. _If Loki decides to stay,_ a voice from the darker side of his mind adds. Tony _knows_ Loki is immortal, or something along the likes of it, but he can’t stop the feeling of helplessness, or the rush of jealousy, when Loki stands before him, looking young and still in his prime, as Tony’s own body is just brittle bones and saggy skin littered with age spots. He can barely stand upright anymore without the support of something else, can’t move with the ease that Loki does.

“Anthony,” Loki whispers, because now he can. He’s moved closer to Tony now, close enough to place his palm against the side of his face and tilt his head up towards Loki. Tony closes his eyes and leans into his touch, like he always used to, relishing in Loki’s warmth on his cheek. It was a feeling that reminded him of home and comfort, and it’s been so long since he’s felt it. Soft, familiar lips press against own chapped ones for a brief moment before it’s pulled away – too quick for either of them to enjoy the kiss. Tony wants to cry at the sudden rush of emotions that’s overflowing from within him, wants to cry at the sudden realization that Loki’s actually here. Loki’s _here,_ with Tony, and he’s _alive and safe_.  “You can’t possibly think that our end is so soon.” Loki finally says.

Tony’s eyes snap open, trying to figure out what the hell Loki’s talking about. Loki’s expression is of no help. Face blank, his eyes are only focused on Tony, roaming over his face as if he’s trying to familiarize himself with all the changes in it.

“You’re gonna make me ask, aren’t you?” And that’s when Loki blinks several times, snapping out of his thought process once he registered Tony’s words, and grins.

“I brought you an apple.” Loki stretches out his left arm, and the air split into two as his hand disappeared inside his pocket dimension.

“Yeah, a little to late to keep the doctor-“ Tony stops short when he sees the apple that Loki just pulled out. Not red, but a fucking _golden_ apple. “Oh. _That_ apple.”

“If you accept this, Anthony, you will live for several thousand years. You will be young again, however, you will have to watch as everyone you know on Earth wither away and die. It will be painful, it may be absolutely devastating, but I will be with you. I will always be with you till our last breaths, unless you choose otherwise. A thousand years is a long time, and you may not always continue to see me the same way you do now. I know that, and I still give you this apple because, while a thousand years is only a fraction of my life, it would seem like an eternity if I don’t have you beside me. I’m willing to risk that, however, because your life is far too precious to be this short, and I love you far too much to let you slip away from me again.” He places the apple on Tony’s palm. A shiver runs through Tony’s body, a subconscious reaction in response to the power it holds. _Everlasting life._ The apple is cool on his hand, the gold glinting as an invitation to bitten.

“We usually have diamond rings here,” Tony says, lifting the apple at eye level before glancing at Loki. “But this’ll do.”

Loki’s lips stretch into a wide smile, pure and beautiful and _beaming,_ and he pulls Tony into another kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I went through a roller coaster of emotions while writing this.


End file.
